Today's Bridge: Another good day for Ken and me. He started with two straight games (one possibly an underbid slam, the other a notrump game with nothing in diamonds that fortunately made), then the opponents made one before I got back in. Dan H. opened 1C, Ken overcalled 1NT, and Dan C. bid 2C. With S Q-x-x-x-x H Q-10-x-x D Q-J-x C x, I felt I was just strong enough for a natural 2S. Dan H. bid 3C, but Ken jumped straight to 4S. He had something like S K-J-10-x-x H A-J-x D A-x-x C A-Q, so the contract was secure and it was just a question of which red kings I'd lose. We went off one doubled in what looked like a decent 4S, but the trump split prevented Ken from effectively setting up my hearts. Dan H. then made an ambitious 2C response to Dan C.'s 1S with only a king and two jacks, which Dan C. jumped straight to 3NT. With my K-J-x-x-x of spades, the suit was pretty dead to him, and Ken found the lead on his second opportunity, giving us off two. Finally, I had S 6-5-4-3-2 H A-Q-x D 10-x-x C x-x and Ken opened 1C, which Dan C. doubled, so I had to bid 1S. Dan H. bid 2H and Ken jumped to 3S, and I left it there. He'd considered jumping right to game with his S A-K-J-10 H x D K-x-x-x-x C J-x-x, but fortunately, he didn't. I ducked the opening queen of diamonds lead, which was followed by a low diamond to the ace and the king of hearts to my ace. I ignored the trump finesse and cashed the top two, assuming that if the split were 3-1, Dan C. had three to the queen for his double and I'd lose it anyway. Instead, they were 2-2, so I cashed the diamonds and threw away my two clubs, making five. I'm set if Dan C. leads a club instead of a heart at trick three, though.

Today's Work: Finally making some progress now that the temperature is back to normal (actually, a bit cold), but we're still slaves to our tools, and the remote services are pretty bad. We've got a few paths forward, and we still have to figure out which one to take, but we're in a position where we actually CAN proceed along one or more of them.

I tried using some of the remaining fajita vegetables in a quesadilla for dinner. It wasn't awful, but it really needs some kind of meat to work, and if I've got fajita vegetables, meat, cheese, tortillas, sour cream, and guacamole, I might as well just rip open a salad and make actual fajitas.

Signature

Yes, I'm THAT Nidoking. Sometimes I write fanfiction... often I waste all my time playing video games and watching anime. But it's not a waste if I enjoy it, right? I can quote from a movie, video game, anime series, or British comedy apropos of just about any situation, and one of my main goals in life is to entertain people. (The other big one is amassing as much anime and manga as I can... see below for a progress report.) That's me in a nutshell. ("Help! I'm trapped in a nutshell! What a bloody great nutshell this is!")